The gesture has spread rapidly in France. Jean-Yves Camus, a French academic who studies the extreme right, says the quenelle has become a “badge of identity, especially among the young, but it is doubtful that all of them understand its true meaning”. Dieudonné, Mr Camus adds, has become the hero of a movement which sprawls across the traditional boundaries of right and left – anti-system, hungry for conspiracy theories, convinced that the world is run by Washington and Tel Aviv [sic]. Mr Camus says that the “spinal column” of the movement is the conviction that “the Jews pull all the strings”.Despite several convictions for anti-Semitic remarks, Dieudonné has strayed once again over the boundary between self-proclaimed anti-Zionism and outright provocation. During his one-man show, he attacked Patrick Cohen, a Jewish radio journalist who has publicly criticised him. Dieudonné said: “When the wind turns, I don’t think he’ll have time to pack a suitcase. When I hear Patrick Cohen talking, you see, I think of gas ovens.” France Inter, the radio station for which Mr Cohen works, has brought a case against Dieudonné for provoking racial hatred.

It has become a sport to take photographs of oneself making the quenelle in front of places of Jewish significance, like synagogues, Auschwitz, the Kotel, etc., or with unsuspecting Jews (photos courtesy Algemeiner.com).

I can’t tell you how trashy and disgusting hip hop and contemporary R&B culture appears to me. I never liked it and it never spoke to my soul

Thousands gathered in more than 100 cities across the U.S. Saturday to protest Stand Your Ground laws and to show support forTrayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager shot and killed last year by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who wasfound not guilty by a jury in his murder case July 13. And Beyoncé and Jay-Z were among them.

actually most people I talk to say few people showed up…

….from what I’ve heard of the gathering in NYC this is not true. People are starting to become embarrassed by this story and narrative. Most admit behind closed doors that Trayvon was not the dead icon they had hoped for….

meanwhile….

(Atlantic Yards Report) OK, Jay-Z may be “bulletproof” in the music market, as some experts say, but some remember lingering taint from the role the hip-hip entrepreneur and cultural force played in the building of a certain Brooklyn arena.

MARTIN: Oh, I had missed that lyric until you all pointed it out to me. Ouch, Kevin what are you saying? Is he overstepping? Is he giving his props to the elders? What’s up?

BLACKISTONE: Yeah, he’s overstepping. I mean, come on you can’t go after Harry Belafonte even though he went after you. Look, you are doing your thing, but we also know you don’t have the history and the narrative of Harry Belafonte. You know, you didn’t learn at the knee of Paul Robeson. You know, you didn’t write the check to get MLK out of the Birmingham jail. I mean, you didn’t do all of those sorts of things. You didn’t march on South Africa.

You know, you did “Big Pimpin,” which a lot of people would say is a misogynistic album, OK. I mean, it may be funky, but at the end – you know, you can look at the lyrics for yourself. And, you know – and most recently, with the whole Barclays Center up in Brooklyn, there’s a whole documentary out called “Battle of Brooklyn,” which shows how Jay-Z and Beyonce were kind of used as pawns to help the developers just steam roll over people in the Atlantic Yards neighborhood so that they could build that sparkling new arena there. So, you know, lay off of

I’m not sure why I’m bothering to reblog this. The economy is in shambles. Men are out of work… the feminists deny it… and people are worried about Jay Z getting clearance from a guy who said Ayers was just some guy in his neighborhood.

**Written by Doug Powers (Michelle Malkin)After it was reported that Jay-Z and Beyoncé traveled to Cuba to soak up some warm Havana weather and maybe get a chance to meet Jimmy Carter, even some of President Obama’s fellow Democrats, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz, were critical of the fact that somebody in the federal government gave the couple permission to make the trip (rumor has it Beyonce was asked to leave Cuba after being caught lip-syncing El Himno de Bayamo). Thursday, Jay Carney insisted the person who ok’d the trip was from the Treasury Department, and not a certain White House resident who likes golf and just happens to be good friends with Jay-Z:

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today denied the White House had any involvement with their trip, saying the Treasury Department handles all clearances for travel to Cuba. “I guess nothing rhymes with Treasury,” Carney joked. In the song, Jay-Z also recounts a conversation he had with President Obama about his trip. “Obama said, ‘Chill, you, gonna get me impeached… We don’t need this s-t anyway, chill with me on the beach,” he raps in the nearly three-minute song. Carney dismissed the claim. “It’s a song,” he said. “The president did not communicate with Jay-Z over this trip.”

Carney said it was preposterous to think that the White House was involved in Jay-Z and Beyonce’s Cuba trip, which might be true. Jay-Z could have given himself permission from the Situation Room for all we know.I haven’t seen anything like this since Marlin Fitzwater’s flat denial of reports that then-President Reagan gave Run DMC permission to perform in East Germany:

The blog Naked D.C. performs a more in-depth analysis of Jay-Z’s “Open Letter” here.Oh, and North Korea might have nuclear weapons capable of being delivered by ballistic missiles. Hopefully at tomorrow’s presser Carney will be asked what Beyoncé thinks of that.**Written by Doug PowersTwitter @ThePowersThatBe

(hoops) Brooklyn Nets Release Logo, Color Scheme: The Brooklyn Nets today introduced their black and white color scheme and logos as the team prepares for its move to the Barclays Center next season.Created by Jay-Z, the Brooklyn Nets’ brand identity incorporates a timeless black and white color palette of the old New York subway signage system, including its clean “Roll Sign” typeface. The treatment celebrates the history and heritage of the city by drawing upon the familiar signage from when Brooklyn last had its own major professional team in 1957.The Nets have two primary logos. One features a shield to symbolically identify the team with the strength and character of Brooklyn, and serves as a salute to the shield in the Nets’ past logo. The circular portion of the logo incorporates a prominent ‘B’ inside a basketball to proudly express the team’s new home borough, and includes the word Brooklyn below the shield. The other logo features a basketball with an iconic ‘B’ inside, along with a ‘Brooklyn New York’ mark surrounding a basketball.“The Brooklyn Nets logos are another step we’ve made to usher the organization into a new era,” Jay-Z said. “The boldness of the designs demonstrates the confidence we have in our new direction. Along with our move to Brooklyn and a state-of-the-art arena, the new colors and logos are examples of our commitment to update and refine all aspects of the team.”“Our black and white colors speak to Brooklyn’s strong traditions and grittiness and convey an uncompromising confidence,” Nets CEO Brett Yormark said. “With its daring color display, the Brooklyn Nets logos are the new badges for Brooklyn and who better to design them than one of the world’s top tastemakers and Brooklyn’s own JAY Z. We are thrilled to launch our brand and to introduce the Brooklyn community to its new team. It’s an honor to bring major professional sports back to Brooklyn and to become part of the fabric of this great borough.”

With Arena, Rapper Rewrites Celebrity Investors’ Playbook

The New York Timesby David M. Halbfinger It’s a broadsheet war! Not to be outdone by today’s puffball Wall Street Journal interview with Bruce Ratner, The Times counters by tickling Jay-Z with feathers.

Mr. Ratner may have thought he was getting little more than a limited partner with a boldface name and a youthful following that could prove useful someday. But Jay-Z’s contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago. His influence on the project has been wildly disproportionate to his ownership stake — a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team. And so is the money he stands to make from it. Now, with the long-delayed Barclays Center arena nearing opening night in September and the relocated Nets bidding in earnest for Brooklyn’s loyalties, Jay-Z will perform eight sold-out shows to kick things off. But away from center stage he has put his mark on almost every facet of the enterprise, his partners say. He helped design the team logos and choose the team’s stark black-and-white color scheme, and personally appealed to National Basketball Association officials to drop their objections to it (The N.B.A., insiders said, thought that African-American athletes did not look good on TV in black, an assertion that a league spokesman adamantly denied). He counseled arena executives on what kind of music to play during games. (“Less Jersey,” he urged, pushing niche artists like Santigold over old favorites like Bon Jovi.) He even coached them on how to screen patrons for weapons without appearing too heavy-handed. (“Be mindful,” he advised oracularly, “and be sensitive.”)

“Jay-Z’s contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago,” the New York Times observes in a none-too-tough profile just posted, adding that “he and the Nets have effectively written a new playbook for how to deploy a strategic celebrity investor.” … The Times reports:

Mr. Carter’s involvement frustrated opponents of Mr. Ratner’s development plans in Brooklyn who saw the arena and proposed residential and office towers as a subsidized land grab that could ruin the neighborhood…. “Bringing in someone who grew up in public housing, with a rags-to-riches story, who could identify with Brooklyn and African-Americans, that was slick,” said City Councilwoman Letitia James, a critic of the project. Mr. Ratner played down Mr. Carter’s importance in overcoming opposition. “Had Jay-Z not come along,” he said, “we’d still have an arena.”

Ratner’s right. Jay-Z wasn’t important in overcoming opposition; actual full-time Brooklynites like the leaders of BUILD and ACORN, signatories of the not-so-credible Community Benefits Agreement, were far more important, given that they brought people to rallies and public hearings. Jay-Z was important in generating publicity, and in getting journalists/tv hosts like Rosanna Scotto to turn into simpering fans. And he’s still generating publicity, as with this article. … That missing disclosureI don’t know what the Times’s policy is any more: do they no longer feel obligated to disclose the parent company’s business relationship with Mr. Ratner? Wouldn’t that prompt readers to be a wee bit skeptical?

no doubt government infrastructure has always had fascinating logo designs. It’s how they sell the lies. It is a post modern irony here. A sports team paid by the public dollar trying to look like New Deal era type font.

(h/t Atlantic Yards Report) The New York Post reported: Jay-Z has pulled his $22 Rocawear t-shirts, which showed “Occupy Wall Street” altered to read “Occupy All Streets” after criticism of his company’s failure to share profits with protesters.

Another article on the Post web site, attributed to Newscore, slammed him harder:

Jay-Z, who has had 12 No. 1 albums, has spent much of his career promoting the massive accumulation of wealth and celebrating the people that do so.

The Jay-Z defenseOn the other hand, those defending Jay-Z point out that, while he may be in the 1% of wealth, he’s earned it through creativity and drive, not through the crony capitalism and unfair rules that the Occupy protesters have decried.That’s a significant point, except it breaks down when it comes to Jay-Z’s promotion of Atlantic Yards and the new Brooklyn arena.Comments on Jay-Z from GothamistGothamist quoted Occupy Wall Street spokesman Patrick Bruner:

Naturally there will be some bloodsuckers who come out of the woodwork. We have a screen-printers guild on camp, and it’s easy to find many other T-shirts that actually benefit the cause.

As to questions of appropriation, one Gothamist commentator, Daniel, made a salient point:

Exactly a sad tale of cultural appropriation of art forms, culture, and entertainment of poor whites starting with such exploitive black men like Elvis, through The Beatles, and Led Zeppelin blatantly lifting entire songs of the white man for the black man’s profit. Oh wait, that’s not how that happened! One cultural idea appropriated and all this outrage?

(New York Daily News) Jay-Z wears his ‘Occupy All Streets’ T-shirt backstage with Russell Simmons at a Nov. 8 Watch the Throne concert in Madison Square Garden. Millionaire rapper Jay-Z is set to launch an Occupy Wall Street T-shirt line Friday — but he doesn’t plan to share the profits with the 99%. A spokeswoman for the mega entertainer’s Rocawear clothing label said the T-shirts were being produced in support of the movement, but not financially. The T-shirts will read, “Occupy All Streets” and will be similar to one Jay-Z was seen wearing at a recent concert. “At this time, we have not made an official commitment to monetarily support the movement,” the Rocawear spokeswoman said in a statement to the Gawker website. Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street protesters continued their march to Washington, D.C. Thursday, saying their spirits were high after getting some unforeseen change of route, the group still arrived at its first scheduled stop in Elizabeth, N.J., on Wednesday night, and made it to Rahway, N.J. in time for lunch Thursday. A family there fed them peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, fruit and water. They picked up six new marchers , losing one en route, and expected to make it some 18 miles to New Brunswick, N.J. by nightfall Thursday. “We are all in high spirits and determined,” said Glazer, whose band hopes to pull into the nation’s capital on Nov. 23, and plans to persuade lawmakers not to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich.

Michael D. D. White, in his Noticing New York blog, suggests that Jay-Z’s take from Forest City Ratner might be going up because of a “reverse morals clause” triggered by the company’s questionable behavior.

Perhaps, but Jay-Z himself is hardly pure, not merely his unquestioning endorsement of Atlantic Yards, but the $50,000 fine the Nets recently incurred because Jay-Z inappropriately visited the locker room of the Kentrucky Wildcats.

Ultimately, I suspect Jay-Z’s fine with it all as long as he can open the Barclays Center with some hugely promoted concerts.